


Land of Broken Dreams

by NaomiJameston



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, HEA, understanding the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27765946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaomiJameston/pseuds/NaomiJameston
Summary: Severus returns home to memories and nothing more. (HEA)
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	Land of Broken Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to my incredible beta MorbidMuch without whom this piece wouldn't have seen the light of day.
> 
> This is heavily based on the song "Land of Broken Dreams" by Jonathan Young. I highly, highly recommend you listen to it. It's fantastic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvvwqsUlyBA
> 
> Lastly, thanks as always to my friends at the Hearts&Cauldrons discord server. I literally could not write without you. <3

Severus paced the main lane of his old haunting grounds. Childhood memories were everywhere. 

Around this corner to Widow Hodgkin’s hovel, where he’d tried to raise a stray cat until he’d been found out and taunted for being a sissy boy. Along this lane to the far side of the river, just under the bridge, where he’d hidden a small stash of treasures- glass bottles that were particularly intriguing, discarded papers from the mill, various bric-a-brac he scavenged from the river. Nothing anyone would see value in, but they were  _ his. _ And over there… He remembered hiding behind the large barrels behind the general store. Duncan Curview and his gang loved chasing Severus but they were all too large to reach him and too small to move the barrels themselves. Mr. Curview would often cheer them on. The one-armed man was no use to the mill after his accident and so he’d pinned all of his hopes on his son, as most men of the mill did.

He snorted. Fat load of good that’d done him. Oh, Duncan was still around, to be sure. Everyone knew the ne’er-do-well. He’d spouted some grand plans about moving to London and making a name for himself. Rising above his father’s plans and being his own man. And he’d left for some months, then returned one night. He never spoke about what happened while he was gone, but he’d been in and out of the quiet goal in their district every few weeks since then. Stealing, gambling, assault- he’d done it all. But he was a local boy and locals could forgive their boys so long as they remembered their place.

Which is why they hated Severus, even now. He’d risen above them all, with his fancy education and new clothes. He’d had the audacity to not become broken and bitter at the world. Hadn’t come crawling back. Hadn’t accepted his fate as they had.

They loathed him. Closed their shops to him. Turned their backs on him. He was no longer “Toby’s boy” but a stranger and untrustworthy. 

He snorted. To be fair, most of the stores and such had been closed to him in childhood, too. Tobias had been the darling of the town, but he’d looked upward, too. Got himself married to a posh princess who never stopped looking down her nose at them. They hadn’t wanted Eileen and Eileen was fine with that. She hadn’t wanted to be saddled with a husband and child in a backwater little industrial village like Spinner’s End.

“You’re quiet,” a voice spoke by his side. Hermione Granger wound her arm through Severus’ as though he was escorting her, laying her head quietly on his shoulder. She was a tall woman but he was a taller man, and they fit together like they had been poured from the same mold. He rested his cheek on her bushy hair, her winter cap long since defeated by its volume.

“Just… remembering,” he said eventually.

“Good memories?”

He shrugged. “Just memories. We never fully fit in, Mum and me. We were… different.”

“I like different,” Hermione said with a smirk. “I don’t know that I would like you so much if you  _ had _ fit in here.”

“There was a time I thought I would,” he admitted, gesturing to the behemoth of rusted machinery in the distance. “That was my fate, same as everyone in the town. The mill kept us all fed and housed and clothed. It just asked for our lives in return.”

She shuddered. “What a waste. Not just you, but everyone here. They could be so much more.”

“They didn’t- don’t want to be more. This is our place.” He grimaced. “And the worst thing a person could do here is forget their place.”

“Your father didn’t, then?” she asked gently.

He snorted. “Not at all. He was proud of his work at the mill. The most he hoped for was a yearly bonus and maybe a commendation from the foreman. He couldn’t have dreamed of being the foreman himself. That would be unthinkable for a man of this town.”

“Born a miller, die a miller?”

“Exactly. He must have had some dreams at one point, else how would he have met my mother? But the mill drew him back in.” He shrugged. “We all return eventually.”

“You didn’t.”

“Aren’t I here now?” he asked with a small smirk, then he sighed. “You’re right. There’s no place for me here.”

“No grand thoughts of becoming the mill foreman?” Hermione asked cheekily. Severus snickered back.

“They shut the mill down years ago. Gave no warning to the town. Dad was in a fine mood that morning. Took extra time combing his hair; dark as a raven’s, it was, and the delight of many about town. He combed his mustache and beard too, and used oil. There was a rumor that the mill’s owner had died and his son would be inspecting their- our mill. So Dad wanted everything to be perfect and neat as a pin.” Severus licked his lips in nervous remembrance. “He returned less than an hour later. I hadn’t even left for school yet.”

“What happened?”

Severus shook his head. “They locked the gates. The owner’s son had come and gone without a word to anyone. Just slapped a notice on the gates that the mill was closed, and moved on. We never heard why.”

“That’s awful!”

Severus nodded. “Dad began to change after that. Without the mill, who was he? He couldn’t be a mill worker without one. He couldn’t afford to move to another mill with my mum and me. They didn’t pay him enough to cover the mortgage and food  _ and _ have enough left over to save. We were stuck. Drowning like the rest of the town but too proud to pull ourselves out.”

“Too proud? Who?”

“All of us,” Severus said, “but especially my father. We could have been all right, maybe, if he’d allowed my mum to work, too.”

“He wouldn’t  _ allow _ her-” Severus ran a hand down Hermione’s curls.

“Down, lioness. It’s in the past and they’re both gone.”

“The more I hear about your father, the less I’m inclined to like him,” she snarled. Severus chuckled and pulled her closer.

“You wouldn’t have liked him by the end, when I came back from Hogwarts after sixth year. He’d always been hard and the loss of the mill made him bitter, but now he was angry.”

“At you?” she asked. “Because you had magic?”

“Among other things, yes.”

She gasped. “Did he… did he hurt you?”

“He wasn’t… a bad man, necessarily,” Severus said, his voice tight with hesitation. “But he was suspicious. He didn’t want anyone to learn about my mother’s… background, if you will, so he started tightening his control over her and me. No more frivolities, whether or not she’d conjured them. There wasn’t allowed to be anything in the house that he hadn’t purchased himself. That included food for a time, but after going to bed hungry because he’d forgotten to buy meat on the way home, he relented. And he found mom’s wand.”

“Did he…” Hermione licked her lips. “Did he snap it?”

“No, he did worse than that. He built up the largest fire we’d had in a long time. Shovelfuls of coal. Almost an entire week’s worth. He let it burn nice and bright, and we were warm for the first time in ages. Then he pulled out my mom’s wand and made her toss it on the flames.”

“No!” Hermione gasped.

Severus nodded. “Then he made us sit in front of that beautiful fire and watch the entire thing burn to ash. It was burning hot in the room but I felt so cold sitting there with my father’s arm around my mother and me.”

He cleared his throat. “So, to answer your question, no. My father never beat me. He didn’t need to.”

“Severus.” Hermione pulled her arm free to clasp both hands to his face. “I am so sorry. For everything.”

He turned his face to kiss her cold palm. 

“Don’t be,” he said. “There is nothing to be sorry for, except perhaps forgetting your mittens. Again.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “How else am I going to convince you to hold my hand unless you are saving me from myself?”

He rolled his eyes good-naturedly and pulled her into a tight hug.

“Come, vixen. There’s nothing left here but broken dreams and bad memories. I would rather make new ones. With you.”

She smiled gently, laid her head on his shoulder, and as the snow started falling over the tired village, the couple disapparated. 

Fin.


End file.
